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I Want to be Near You Always

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Story time.  This is a tribute to my Albanian boyfriend, Alexamder, who I met in Greece.  We’re all laying on the black sand beach in Santorini.  Just laying and sighing and getting sun.  Our four sun chairs were spread out pretty far apart because we were all trying to get in the sun, and the umbrellas were casting big shadows.

Mindy was probably 6 feet away, and Maygan & Kyle were much further over at the next set of chairs. Our chairs were right up front, and at one point, I looked up and saw these two gorgeous guys walking by in the water.  Like anyone would do in this situation, I smiled at them, because, if you missed it the first time, they were gorgeous and looked like models.

Well as soon as I smiled, one of them smiles back, says hi, and starts walking over – Okay, this NEVER happens.  I think it’s what you always dream will happen, but it never actually does, so I didn’t know what to do or how to handle it when the model in the water actually started walking towards me like Adonis rising out of the sea towards my chair.
So, like any smooth confident lady would do, I panicked, quickly laid down, and put my huge sun hat over my face, so that he could keep on walking by, and there would be no chance of us actually talking.Oh, no.  He walked right up to my chair, stood over it (with me laying there with my hat on my face), and said “Hello”, thus forcing me out from under my hiding place.  What?? Who does that?? Adonis models? Is that what you do? Didn’t you see that I just laid down pretending not to see you and immediately fell asleep under my hat?

Ignoring all cues, he just pulled up a sun chair and sat 2 inches from me and started talking in broken English, one of the questions being, “Are you done with school?”  Oh bless your heart! That’s the sweetest question ever.  Wait, are YOU done with school??  He was, but obviously not too far out if we’re still asking that question.
Although I’d be very happy to stare at his face for the rest of my life, I’m just feeling weird because I’m laying there in my swimsuit trying to act skinny, aware that I have three friends who must be watching and wondering what is going on.I’m also acutely aware of the fact that I will not be falling in love with a just-out-of-college Albanian model who barely speaks English.  So when he wants us to exchange numbers so we can meet up later, yes, fine, whatever will get you and your perfect teeth away from my chair so that I don’t have to pretend like I’m comfortable laying here in a bikini taking 10 minutes to explain that I’m from the U-NI-TED STATES.

He accidentally put his name in the phone as “Aleksamder”, and the voicemails and texts that ensued over the next couple days gave us some of the best laughs of the trip.  Mindy and I were almost crying laughing at his first voicemail, which I can transcribe from memory (in a thick Albanian accent) as follows:

“….(Long pause)…..Excuse me!  Clock o ten.  ….No ten, eleven. ……..Santorini…..Fira…..” Click.
What?Now, I’m well aware that learning a foreign language is no easy task.  But I think it’s pretty universal to start a phone message with “Hello.”  Ah, he’s so pretty, who cares.

And then these text messages:

That’s very kind of you. What time come fira shall we?  Thank you???

Has the goods.  Meet the better.  I want to be near you always.


Why can’t every 5 minute interaction end this way?  That’s all I want.

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